


Happy Christmas, Harry

by Celandine



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Ficlet, Holidays, M/M, Make the Yuletide Gay, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-21
Updated: 2005-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-12 10:50:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celandine/pseuds/Celandine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nearly four decades after Voldemort's defeat, Harry and Draco celebrate the holiday together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Christmas, Harry

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the same universe as "Better Than Revenge," but it's not necessary to have read that fic to read this.

Thirty-eight years was a long time, Harry reflected as he tied a length of narrow red ribbon to the sprig of mistletoe and looped it over the hook at the top of the bedroom doorway. He ought not to be surprised if Draco was not as keen to jump into bed as he had been back in their twenties. Truth to tell, Harry himself was not always so ready and willing either. But perhaps the mistletoe would spark something tonight.

If Draco ever came home, that was. Harry frowned and glanced at the clock. Nearly seven on Christmas eve, and Draco still at work? He was senior man in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts department these days, so surely if there were something going on he could delegate responsibility. Rank had its privileges, especially in the Ministry.

The telephone rang, startling him. Almost the only reason they had it was to place an occasional takeaway order when they were both too tired or busy to cook. He lifted the receiver. "Hello?"

"Dad?"

"Rosemary, how nice to hear from you! Where are you?"

"At the Burrow with Mum and Papa Oliver and everyone. Don't you remember, Granddad had a Muggle telephone put in a few years ago? I think he told Grandmum it was research. It's ancient, you have to spin a dial to put in the numbers, but it works. I wanted to ring you and Papa Draco tonight to wish you a happy Christmas, since it's likely to be crazy around here tomorrow," Harry's daughter said.

"That's very thoughtful of you, Rosie; thank you. Draco's not home from work yet, he'll be sorry to have missed your call."

"Oh, I'll try tomorrow, I just don't know if I'll manage. I feel bad that you two will be all alone. Why didn't you come here? It'll be great fun with the whole Weasley clan."

"We decided it would be nice to have a quiet Christmas with just the two of us for a change. We'll see you in a few days anyway."

"Yes, uncle Ron asked me to their New Year's Eve party, and you always go to that, don't you. What's that, Mum?" Rosemary's voice was muted; she must have put her hand over the receiver, Harry thought. "Mum says to wish you both a happy Christmas from her, too."

"Happy Christmas to your mum and to all the Weasleys, all right, sweetheart? We'll see you soon," said Harry, and hung up the phone.

Not only was Rosemary spending Christmas at the Burrow this year, but Draco's son Horatio had gone on holiday to Greece with his wife Ariadne and their children, visiting her family there. Draco had been miffed not to have everyone home for Christmas, even though he admitted it was only fair. And where _was_ he? They had a tradition of opening one gift from each other on Christmas eve, and Harry had something special for him this time.

He put the little package on Draco's place at the table and went into the kitchen, humming under his breath as he checked to make sure that the green curry sauce had not scorched. He would add the prawns at the last minute; Draco hated overcooked fish.

A thump in the fireplace told him that Draco had finally returned by Floo.

"Sorry I'm so late, Harry," Draco said, coming up from behind and wrapping his arms around Harry's waist to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Perdita Longbottom's on duty tonight, and you know how she is. Took me ages to make sure she had everything under control."

"Not as distracted as her mother, though," said Harry, turning around in Draco's embrace. He kissed Draco's lips quickly, adding, "Dinner's nearly ready – will you pour the wine for us while I finish up?"

"Smells delicious. Shall we have some music with the meal?"

Draco switched on the Wizarding Wireless Network, which was playing a medley of holiday tunes performed by the popular witch singer Tansy Torrington.

"Ugh," they both said at once, and Draco hastily turned it off, instead finding a Muggle station with a program of Bach concertos. Carols were all very well, but after a while enough was enough.

"I'll open this after dinner," said Draco, setting his gift aside.

They lingered over the meal, recalling other years when the children had both been there.

"Remember the time we were so behindhand on wrapping their presents, and you sent them outside so we could finish? Rosemary was only four and the snow was up to her waist," said Harry.

"Yes, and Horatio took her sledding and they had so much fun they nearly froze to death before they came back. You made them drink so much Pepperup Potion that I thought the steam would never stop spouting from their ears," Draco reminded him.

Harry smiled. "We were both rather nervous parents at first, weren't we? Especially with two; you never had any siblings, and living with the Dursleys didn't exactly prepare me for creating a stable family. But we all survived it."

"That we did." Draco scooped up a last forkful of rice.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. Rosemary rang to wish us a happy Christmas. She'll try tomorrow but wasn't sure she'd have a chance, Weasley Christmases being what they are."

"Well, it's what, seventeen grandchildren and how many great-grands, now? Just the gift-opening must take up half the day, and Molly feeding everyone the rest of the time."

"Speaking of which, you should open yours," Harry said, impatient to see Draco's reaction.

Draco took his time undoing the silver ribbon and taking the green paper off the box, but finally he lifted the lid and gasped.

Harry was smugly pleased at Draco's reaction. He had seen these in a shop in Diagon Alley when he had taken a consignment of brooms to Quality Quidditch Supplies, and decided they were the perfect gift for his partner. Draco evidently agreed.

"Cufflinks, a tiepin, and earrings," he said, laying them in a row on the polished dark wood of the table. "Stop that," he admonished as one of the tiny silver dragons snapped at his fingertip.

"There's a charm to teach them who their owner is," Harry explained. "Those diamond-chip teeth are sharp."

"And... emerald eyes," said Draco, peering closely at them. "But not as brilliant as yours. Thank you, love." He smiled waveringly at Harry. "I'll wear them to Ron and Hermione's New Year's Eve party, shall I?"

"You'll be the best-looking bloke there," said Harry. "Not that you wouldn't be anyhow."

"So you always say."

"Only because it's true."

"Should I try these on?" Draco gestured at the jewelry.

"Go ahead – the ownership charm's on a slip of paper in the box. I'll take the dishes to the kitchen."

Household spells were even more effective than Muggle-style automatic dishwashers, Harry reflected as soapy water sloshed around in the pots, and the clean dishes stacked themselves neatly in the rack to drain. Thank goodness. They would have been living in squalor otherwise.

"Harry?"

"Be right there."

Draco was waiting under the mistletoe. "Seemed like I should take advantage of this, since you put it up."

He put his arms around Harry and kissed him as if they were seventeen again, with all the passion and confusion of that year before Voldemort's defeat.

"I hate to tell you this," said Harry when they paused for breath, "but you've forgotten something in putting on all your new jewelry."

"What?" Draco turned an innocent face towards him.

"Your trousers."

"That was deliberate. Think of all the years we couldn't run around like this, in case the kids were around... maybe with a friend in tow." Draco kissed Harry again, more playfully this time. "Besides, I was hoping you'd join me."

"But it's cold," Harry complained.

"I'll give you a foot rub. That'll warm your toes."

A foot rub from Draco was not to be turned down. Harry figured it had to be native talent. Who else would Draco have given them to before Harry? Not exactly the sort of thing teenaged boys bothered with. He let Draco lead him to the bed and strip off his clothes, down to his underwear, even taking off his glasses and putting them on the bedside table.

Draco sat propped against the headboard and Harry lay down with his head by the foot of the bed, his right foot in Draco's lap. The citrusy smell of bergamot exuded from the oil bottle Draco had chosen. Harry hummed and sighed as warm thumbs smoothed over his heel, pressed into his instep, and moved up to the ball of his foot, rubbing each toe in turn.

The lamplight was not kind to Draco, not from Harry's angle. It was hard to distinguish the silver among the fair strands – unlike Harry, on whom every grey hair showed – but the shadows exaggerated the lines around Draco's eyes and mouth and the extra flesh under his chin. None of that mattered to Harry, and he had not been merely flattering when he said Draco would be handsomer than any other man at the Granger-Weasley party. He loved each sign of all the years they had spent together; to him Draco was better-looking now than in the first year they had been a couple.

"Next foot."

Harry tucked his right foot under the edge of the duvet to keep warm and shifted his left one over onto Draco's lap.

As Draco finished the second foot by massaging Harry's ankle, Harry said, "That felt wonderful. My feet thank you."

"They're welcome." Draco's fingers lingered on Harry's calf, and Harry thought he saw a glint in Draco's eye.

He moved his foot over and let it rest against Draco's cock through the thin white cotton of his pants. Draco was half-hard. Harry raised his eyebrows. "You haven't seemed to be too interested, lately. Is that about to change?"

"What? I thought _you_ weren't so keen on it. You always said you were so tired, when I got home."

"No, _you_ always just wanted to have dinner, and maybe play wizarding chess."

Draco sighed and shifted under Harry's foot. "I'm sorry I haven't let you know more often when I was interested, Harry. I was trying to be considerate. I love you, you know, even if I don't say so every day."

"I love you too, you git, and it's as much my fault as yours. I could've said something."

"You could have, true."

"But I'm saying it now."

"Better late than never." Draco was unfastening the new tiepin, tossing it with the cufflinks onto the bedside table. One cufflink hissed as it landed upside down. The wardrobe opened to catch his white linen shirt – a trick Harry had never managed.

"Come here."

Harry traced along the scars on Draco's chest, long faded now.

"Horatio asked me about those once," said Draco abruptly, catching Harry's fingertips and bringing them to his mouth to kiss.

"What, my fingers?"

"No, you clot, the scars. I told him they were a reminder that forgiveness is better than revenge."

"Bet he didn't understand that." Harry kissed Draco's jaw, then swiped a warm wet stripe down his neck and bit the skin at the juncture where it met his shoulder.

"Not when he was six, no." Draco shivered under Harry's mouth. "When he was sixteen he asked about it again and I explained that you and I had once been enemies... and both done things we'd regretted later on."

"I haven't regretted doing anything lately though. _Not_ doing, perhaps."

"Like not doing this?" Draco's hand closed around Harry's cock.

"That would be the sort of thing, yes."

Harry reciprocated, beginning a slow firm stroke.

Draco smiled, the full warm smile that he gave only rarely and that made Harry's heart turn over when he saw it. "That's definitely the sort of thing."

There was no hurry. No guests to take care of this holiday, no kids down the hall, no job to go to in the morning. Harry smoothed his palm down Draco's chest and belly, where the skin was beginning to sag. Draco squirmed.

"Tickles."

"Sorry." He pinched one of Draco's nipples instead, knowing that if tenderness was not what Draco wanted, a little roughness would be all right. Draco's fingernails scraped along Harry's shoulder, making him shudder. He liked it a little rough sometimes too.

Breathing raggedly as Draco drew on all their years and times, fisting him just _so_ , touching him just _there_ , Harry let Draco take the lead. Slow building up of excitement, then Draco would stop pumping him and kiss him lingeringly, both hands on Harry's face, sharp whiff of rut in Harry's nostrils, before touching him once more, sliding his own cock against Harry's, slick with sweat and excitement. Harry gasped and groaned and reached down to fondle Draco's balls, rub his thumb along the bulging veins at the base of his cock, until Draco's hands on him were too distracting and he could feel the orgasm gathering, shaking him from heels to head as he spurted into Draco's greedy palm.

"Come on, yeah, come for me," he whispered into Draco's ear, stroking him faster-firmer-faster, biting his neck. And Draco did, striping Harry's stomach with it, his head thrown back, eyes closed.

Harry held Draco close, hearing the slight wheeze in his own breathing fade away as the pounding of his heart slowed to its usual pace. He could see the silver dragon in Draco's ear yawning.

Draco kissed Harry's throat. "We should celebrate the holidays like this more often."

"Why wait for a holiday?"

"Good point." Draco chuckled. "All right, we should celebrate each other like this more often."

"Definitely. But since this _is_ a holiday, I think a nightcap is in order, don't you?" Harry reached for his wand and _Accio_ 'd their best bottle of port and two glasses, and as an afterthought cast a spell to clean them both up.

He had filled Draco's glass and was pouring his own when there was a tapping at the window.

"I'll get it," said Draco, jumping out of bed. Two owls swooped in, one looking exhausted. Harry recognized that one as Horatio's, but the other was unfamiliar, a common post-owl for hire. Draco gave each bird an Owl Treat and let them back out before he brought the two parcels over to Harry.

"This one's my Christmas eve gift to you," he said, looking embarrassed. "I wasn't sure it would get here on time – it's been so busy at the Ministry that I didn't get my shopping done – and I hoped you might get distracted enough not to notice. It's really nothing compared to these." He touched his earlobe.

"Don't worry about that, that's silly. You chose it for me, that's what counts." Harry unwrapped first brown paper, then holly-patterned, and opened the box. He smiled. "Nice way to get out of those footrubs in future," he said, pulling out a pair of flannel-lined leather slippers with gold dragons embossed into the leather.

"I didn't..." Draco began, but Harry laid a hand on his wrist.

"I'm having you on, you know that. They're perfect. Now, what did Horatio send? Should we open it tonight?"

"Why not?" Draco tore off the layers of paper.

Waving up at them were – themselves. Three pictures were set into a folding multiple frame. Rosemary's gleaming red hair whipped in the wind as she swooped past a goalpost in her Montrose Magpie robes. Horatio, Ariadne, and little Demetrios and Ianthe played on a white-sanded beach. In the center was the family all together, the four of them in a picture taken last midsummer when they had gone on a picnic in Wales, the two fathers and two children sitting in a row, arms around each other, picture-Harry whispering in picture-Draco's ear, everyone grinning broadly.

"It's almost like having them here, isn't it?" Draco's voice was rough as he ran a finger along the edge of the frame.

"Almost. And we'll see them both soon. Rosie'll be at the New Year's party, and Horatio promised to stop by for a day or two as soon as they're back from Greece." Harry handed Draco his neglected glass of port. "Happy Christmas, Draco. It's all been worth it, hasn't it? Even missing them now – it's worth it."

"Yes, it is." Draco touched his glass to Harry's and took a sip.

"Happy Christmas, Harry."

**Author's Note:**

> Written in part for the December 2005 challenge at The Hex Files, in part for violet_quill's Make the Yuletide Gay challenge, and in part simply for myself. Many thanks to a_d_medievalist, espresso_addict, and most especially jelazakazone for beta help when this fic didn't quite want to work. All remaining infelicities are mine.


End file.
